Egyptian antiquities authorities have unveiled ancient workshops and tombs discovered recently at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside the capital Cairo.
On May 27, 2023, Egyptian antiquities authorities unveiled ancient workshops and tombs they say were discovered recently at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside the capital Cairo.
Pictured here is Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, displaying a recently unearthed ancient wooden sarcophagus at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara.
The spaces were found in the sprawling necropolis of Saqqara, which is a part of Egypt's ancient capital of Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Pictured here is a Canopic jar, which was made to contain organs that were removed from the body in the process of mummification, found at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara.
Waziri said the workshops had been used to mummify humans and sacred animals. They date back to the 30th Pharaonic Dynasty (380 BC to 343 BC) and Ptolemaic period (305 BC to 30 BC), he said.
Here, visitors pose for pictures on top of the ancient embalming workshops.
Inside the workshops, archaeologists found clay pots and other items apparently used in mummification, as well as ritual vessels, Waziri said.
An ancient wooden sarcophagus that was part of the new discovery.
The tombs, meanwhile, were for a top official from the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, and a priest from the New Kingdom, according to Sabri Farag, head of the Saqqara archaeological site.
Pictured here are more Canopic jars.
In recent years, Egypt's government has heavily promoted new archaeological finds to international media and diplomats. It hopes that such discoveries will help attract more tourists to the country to revive an industry that suffered from political turmoil following the 2011 uprising.
A coloured painting is seen on a recently unearthed ancient wooden sarcophagus at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara.
An Egyptian archeologist points at a coloured painting showing offering sacrifices at a recently uncovered tomb that was said to belong to a top official of the fifth Dynasty named "Ne Hesut Ba" (2400 BC), at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara.
A stone receipt dating back 2000 years has been unearthed in Jerusalem.
Identified as part of the early Roman period in the city (37 BCE - 70 CE), the tablet contains records of an ancient financial transaction, the Israel Antiquities Authority said.
The seven partially preserved lines of the inscription include fragmentary Hebrew names with letters and numbers written beside them.
One line includes the end of the name "Shimon" followed by the Hebrew letter "mem", and in the other lines are symbols representing numbers. Some of the numbers are preceded by their economic value, also marked with the Hebrew letter "mem", an abbreviation of ma'ot (Hebrew for "money").
One lucky swimmer scuba diving off the coast of Israel made the discovery of a lifetime, stumbling across an almost 2000-year-old shipwreck.
Experts say they were aware that the ancient shipwreck existed, but hadn't been able to pinpoint exactly where as it was "covered in sand".
That was until the diver came across the find in the Mediterranean Sea.
Koby Sharvit, director of the underwater archaeology unit at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), said it's likely that recent storms helped uncover the wreck from its deep-sea slumber.
Upon further inspection, it was revealed the ancient Roman-era ship was carrying 44 tons (40 metric tonnes) of marble, including Corinthian columns adorned with ornate vegetal patterns, capitals and marble columns measuring some six metres long.
The find marks the oldest known sea cargo wreck in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Based on the size of the elements, scientists determined the size of the ship, "could bear a cargo of at least 200 tons," Sharvit said - equivalent to roughly 30 adult male African elephants.
Scientists have managed to recover ancient DNA from a deer tooth pendant made about 20,000 years ago.
The pendant, recovered in Denisova Cave, Russia, may have been worn by a woman of North Eurasian ancestry, researchers found.
The findings, published in the journal Nature, revealed that the woman who may have worn the amulet was closely related to a group of humans who had previously only been found to like further east in Siberia.
Objects made from animal bone are considered to be useful potential sourced of ancient DNA due to their porous nature.
The scientists who carried out this research developed a new method of DNA extraction that proves less dangerous to the object being studied.
The tooth itself is believed to have belonged to a wapiti, a species of elk.
Archaeologists in Livorno, Italy, are putting together the pieces of a great mystery that began with a stunning find.
While hiking in a cleared area of a Tuscan forest northeast of Livorno, a member of the Livorno Paleontological Archaeological Group spotted a few glimmering coins in the dirt in November 2021.
Upon closer inspection and excavation, researchers determined that the find included 175 silver Roman denarii coins.
Nearly all were in good condition, making this one of the few hoards of ancient coins found intact, according to the group.
Only two of the coins are fractured but can be reassembled.
The group has spent more than a year figuring out whose treasure it was and why it was hidden.
"This treasure is about a person's life, the savings of a soldier's life and his hopes for building his farm," Alderighi said via email.
"However, it also tells a sad story: (T)he owner of the coins died before he could make his dreams come true using his savings. The coins tell his story."
It's impossible to know exactly who buried the coins, Alderighi said, but the coins would most likely have been the treasure of a former soldier who served during Rome's Social War from 91 to 88 BC and during the civil war between Sulla and the Marians from 83 to 82 BC.
The owner of the hoard buried it in a terra-cotta pot, which served as a sort of piggy bank.
The earliest coins in the stash dated to 157 or 156 BC, and the latest up to 83 or 82 BC, according to the archaeological group's release.
During that time, 175 denarii would have been a soldier's salary for about a year and a half, Alderighi said. Now, the treasure has a value of around 20,000 to 25,000 euros ($41,408), she added.
Laura Young, a woman from Austin, Texas, was browsing her local Goodwill charity shop in 2018 when she came across a piece she thought was unique.
She bought the item for just $51 and took it home with her, strapping it into her car for protection on the ride home.
Little did she know, she has just picked up a priceless Roman artifact that had been lost for decades.
Once Young did some research and realised what she had found, she contacted auction house experts Sothersby's, who confirmed the bust to be over 2000 years old.
A specialist was then able to find an image of the bust on display in the 1930s in Aschaffenburg in Bavaria, Germany.
It is believed a US soldier stole the bust in the 1950s and brought it to America, which is how it eventually ended up in a charity shop.
The bust has been on loan to the San Antonio Museum of Art for the last year, and will be returned to Germany next month.
"It's been really bittersweet," Young told CNN on Thursday.
"I'm a little in denial, but I do plan on visiting him in Germany."
A pair of ancient stone busts, about 2600 years old, have shed new light on the lost Tartessos civilisation of long-ago Spain.
Tartessos was named by ancient Greek authors as a land rich in metals, particularly tin, gold, and bronze, in the south of the Iberian peninsula. The archaeological record for them has been thin, but golden artefacts have been retrieved which suggest they were a sophisticated people with skills in working metal.
The new busts, which were found in a sealed pit at Casas del Turuñuelo surrounded by horse bones, represent a major potential shift in what we know about this lost people.
The Tartessians were until now believed to be of an "aniconic" culture - they were thought to not create representations of mythic figures or people.
Researchers from the Spanish National Research Council said in a statement that the level of detail and skill involved in the stonework - along with the presence of nearby animal sacrifices - suggested the heads represented goddesses.
"However, the researchers do not rule out that they are prominent figures in Tartessian society," the council said in a statement.
Some early experts believed this ancient Spanish civilisation could have inspired legends of Atlantis, but the claims have been widely contested.